![\"Karinza](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/FEATURED-IMAGE.png\")
Myopharm CEO Karinza Phoenix<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPublished on\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJune 13, 2026\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Former pharma executive Karinza Phoenix is raising $5 million and preparing an ASX listing as Myopharm advances a diabetes drug it hopes can complement the GLP-1 giants.<\/p>\n
Myopharm CEO Karinza Phoenix<\/p>\n
Karinza Phoenix hasn\u2019t found it hard raising the $6 million that\u2019s got her biotech firm, Myopharm, onto the fast-track approval process for its Type 2 diabetes drug.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow many times do I present to these high-net-worth individuals and they say, \u2018I\u2019m a poorly controlled diabetic\u2019,\u201d Phoenix tells Forbes Australia. \u201cThey know what\u2019s coming. Some investors are getting injections weekly into their eyeballs, and they say, \u2018We can\u2019t wait for a drug like this, Karinza.\u201d<\/p>\n
As pharmaceutical companies scramble to find the next generation of diabetes treatments beyond blockbuster GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic and Mounjaro, Sydney biotech Myopharm believes it has found a place in the market.<\/p>\n
Sydney-based Myopharm\u2019s drug is called TriGlytza and Phoenix is on a pre-IPO roadshow to Singapore, China, Hong Kong and finishing in the US with an American Diabetes Association conference presentation.<\/p>\n
Myopharm is seeking $5 million to fund a Phase-2a trial, with an ASX listing pencilled in for the second half of 2026.<\/p>\n
Her pitch has resonated with investors, she says, because Myopharm is targeting one of healthcare\u2019s largest and fastest-growing markets with a drug she believes can mop up what\u2019s left after the GLP1 inhibitors like Mounjaro and Ozempic have had their day.<\/p>\n
The global diabetes therapeutics market is worth more than US$100 billion annually and is forecast to continue growing as obesity rates rise worldwide. The GLP-1 market is valued between US$62 billion and US$73 billion and is projected to double or triple by 2034.<\/p>\n
\u201c75% of people fail their first-line therapy in the first 12 months of being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes,\u201d Phoenix says. \u201cEighteen per cent of people fail GLPs. They are GLP naive. We saw an interview with James Packer<\/a> about that recently. He\u2019s like, \u2018it didn\u2019t work for me.\u2019 Some people just don\u2019t get any effect at all.\u201d<\/p>\n TriGlytza has been able to skip Phase 1 safety trials because its three constituent molecules have been well studied in the past. \u201cThe FDA put us on a fast-track designation because of all that\u00a0 \u2026 and because there\u2019s almost a billion people globally<\/a> now with diabetes,\u201d says Phoenix.<\/p>\n Professor Mark Cooper, head of diabetes research at Monash University, said the combination of the three existing drugs was a clever idea. He\u2019d worked on one of them, Valsartan, a blood pressure drug, two decades ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re using one drug, metformin, which is a classic tablet that you use to reduce sugar. It\u2019s the first drug that\u2019s always used [against Type 2 diabetes], and then they\u2019ve added two other drugs that have\u00a0been shown to maybe slow the progression of your diabetes \u2026 and they\u2019re three relatively cheap\u00a0drugs.\u201d The other molecule, Celecoxib, is an anti-inflammatory.<\/p>\n Oral TriGlytza could be an effective first line drug, before patients were put on insulin and the more expensive injectables, says Cooper, who is an unpaid advisor to Myopharm.<\/p>\n He said one of TriGlytsa\u2019s constituents, Valsartan, had shown promise for diabetes 20 years ago. \u201cIt moderately reduced\u00a0progression of diabetes but by itself it was not be good enough to be a diabetes drug.\u201d The mechanisms were poorly understood, he said, but inflammation sat at the heart of it.<\/p>\n Mouse studies also held promise that TriGlytza could be used for weight loss, particularly visceral [internal gut] fat, without muscle loss, says Phoenix.<\/p>\n \u201cThe problem with a lot of the GLP1 drugs in the market right now is you lose your muscle mass,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople between 50 and 60 are standing on DEXA scan machines noticing they\u2019ve lost all their muscle, which is a big problem when you\u2019re heading into the years where frailty becomes an issue.\u201d<\/p>\n Phoenix says that TriGlytza will work by treating the root cause of Type 2 diabetes, which she styles as inflammation. \u201cThe GLP1s help by getting the weight down, but they don\u2019t always address the underlying disease drivers. And it\u2019s not a one-size-fits-all.\u201d<\/p>\n Towards the patent cliff<\/p>\n The company is betting that combination therapies will become increasingly valuable as large pharmaceutical companies search for replacements for ageing blockbusters. It\u2019s a trend Phoenix knows well.<\/p>\n Phoenix arrived at Myopharm after a career that spanned both big pharma and the capital markets. She joined Novartis fresh out of Auckland University of Technology where she studied animal science and veterinary tech.<\/p>\n She spent two decades inside global pharmaceutical giants including Novartis and Pfizer. When her division at Pfizer was wound down amid regulatory changes in 2015, Phoenix took redundancy and pivoted into investor relations and capital raising.<\/p>\n She spent five years at startup StocksDigital, helping emerging companies navigate IPOs and funding rounds, with a focus on biotechs.<\/p>\n Phoenix and veteran drug developer Dr Milton Grannatt founded Myopharm in 2020, when it was emerging that diabetics were significantly more likely to die from COVID-19 than non diabetics<\/a>. Evidence was also emerging that diabetes might be causal in a host of other acute diseases, including cancers<\/a> and heart disease<\/a>.<\/p>\n They were convinced that despite the rise of new treatments, too many patients were failing to achieve sustained control of the disease.<\/p>\n \u201cPharma really wants them.\u201d <\/p>\n Karinza Phoenix<\/p>\n \u201cWe went around and spoke to biotechnology companies, we spoke to universities, we spoke to the CSIRO, organisations like that. They have IP trade desks, and we got on their registers and worked out what was coming through,\u201d says Phoenix.<\/p>\n Phoenix and Grannatt came across a struggling biotech venture in New Jersey whose founder, Dr Ravi Kumar, had developed a portfolio of patents around a novel treatment for Type 2 diabetes.<\/p>\n Kumar\u2019s Arkay Therapeutics didn\u2019t have the capital to advance it.\u00a0 Convinced of the drug\u2019s potential, Myopharm acquired the TriGlytza IP from Kumar in early 2024 and secured what Phoenix describes as the \u201cgolden goose\u201d of biotech development: an Investigational New Drug (IND) approval from the US Food and Drug Administration, allowing the therapy to enter human clinical trials at the phase-2 stage.<\/p>\n \u201cThe USFDA don\u2019t let you skip a phase one unless they\u2019re pretty convinced that there\u2019s a lot of data there.\u201d<\/p>\n Myopharm has also extended patent protection out to at least 2046, providing the commercial runway needed to attract a future pharmaceutical partner.<\/p>\n Myopharm will do its Phase 2a study in Australia where generous R&D tax incentives return up to 48 cents in the dollar on eligible expenditure. The study will enrol 48 patients over 16 weeks in a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial designed to assess safety and measure changes in blood glucose control, compared to metformin alone.<\/p>\n A member of the Myopharm\u2019s scientific advisory panel, emeritus professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Stanley Schwartz, says inflammation sits at the heart of diabetes. \u201cTriGlytza affects six of the 11 mechanisms of hyperglycaemia: liver muscle adipose tissue, insulin resistance, the gut \u2013 because metformin affects absorption of sugar \u2013 and obviously, most important, the beta cell.\u201d<\/p>\n Phoenix says the big question that Myopharm hopes to answer is what comes after GLP1s. \u201cThere\u2019s obviously mass saturation at the moment,\u201d she says. \u201cSome are coming off patent.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are about to experience the worst patent cliff in pharmaceutical history. Thirty-three blockbusters and another hundred drugs will come off patent in the next year. I\u2019ve lived through some pretty big patent cliffs, but this is the biggest one I\u2019ve seen.<\/p>\n \u201cSo pharma are desperate to acquire diabetes drugs at that phase-2-trial stage or an IND stage. And we have all those US approvals, so we\u2019re in a really good space. We could be acquired as an adjunct therapy, used with GLP1s. We see ourselves as very much complementary to that space, or we could be used as a monotherapy for Type 2 diabetes.\u201d<\/p>\n TriGlytza is part of a growing class of medicines known as fixed-dose combinations (FDCs), which bundle multiple therapies into a single treatment. Phoenix says the approach has become one of the hottest areas in diabetes drug development, with around 18 FDCs currently progressing through clinical trials globally.<\/p>\n The trend has attracted the attention of major pharmaceutical companies, many of which are looking to complement their existing blockbuster GLP-1 portfolios with combination therapies.<\/p>\n \u201cPharma really wants them,\u201d says Phoenix. \u201cYou\u2019re seeing a lot of the big players moving into the FDC space and acquiring these assets in Phase 2.\u201d<\/p>\n If Myopharm\u2019s Phase 2 trial is a success, it would need a final registration trial looking at about 350 participants over six months.<\/p>\n Phoenix says the company\u2019s preference would be to strike a commercial deal with a pharmaceutical partner before commencing Phase 3, which would need to be conducted in the United States.<\/p>\n Phoenix says Myopharm\u2019s future lies offshore in some form. \u201cWe would get 12 emails a night from the US. We\u2019ve already had early-stage interest from GLP companies between the US and Korea. So we will need to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n Want to see more Forbes articles on your feed?\u00a0Tap here to make Forbes Australia a preferred source on Google.<\/a><\/p>\n Look back on the week that was with hand-picked articles from Australia and around the world.\u00a0Sign up to the Forbes Australia newsletter here<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0become a member here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published on June 13, 2026 Former pharma executive Karinza Phoenix is raising $5 million and preparing an ASX…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":733451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[354718,64,63,1835,245729,245733,137,354719,354720,354721,354722,329552,354723],"class_list":["post-733450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-arkay-therapeutics","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-diabetes","tag-fdc","tag-fixed-dose-combination","tag-health","tag-karinza-phoenix","tag-mark-cooper","tag-milton-grannatt","tag-myopharm","tag-ravi-kumar","tag-triglytza"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=733450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Myopharm](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1_3fa8fb.png\")
Profesor Mark Cooper with Myopharm CEO Karinza Phoenix. <\/p>\n![\"Myopharm](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Screenshot_12-6-2026_10197_www.youtube.com_.jpeg\")
TriGlytza\u2019s pathways of action.<\/p>\n![\"Myopharm\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781332104_250_1.png\")
Myopharm CEO Karinza Phoenix<\/p>\n